Got Glutes?

The main reason the booty won’t grow is because one just goes through the motions. The gluteus needs attention. There are certain actions that need to be intently applied.

Below are my top 3 exercises.

1. Elevated Weighted Glute Bridges:

Basically, you are going to hump the air. With the upper area of your back (shoulder blades) find a bench or etc and lay up against it. While lying on your back, bend your knees in front of you, push those hips to the sky, and feel your booty naturally contract. If you cannot feel your gluteus tighten up, then adjust the distance from your feet to your back. Now this alone won’t create enough tension to break down the glute muscles, so you will need to add resistance (weight). Use a barbell, use judgement on how heavy, and place it across both hip bones. Keep control of the bar and push your hips towards the sky. When that tightening occurs in your booty….SQUEEZE harder, then lower. The squeeze will add more tension which thus causes more fibers to break down. More fibers broken down means more fibers grown. I suggest 10 reps with tense squeezes at the top for 5 sets. That’s a total of 50 intense reps.

See picture below.

2. Leg Press Kickbacks:

Have a leg press machine in your gym? Instead of lying on your back, flip over onto your stomach. Make sure your arms are supporting your balance by placing them on the back pad. Use the middle bottom portion of the platform and ONLY push with your heels. Intently pushing through the heels will activate more fibers in the booty. Once the leg is fully extended and the gluteus becomes contracted..SQUEEZE until you can’t anymore. Another tip is to create more time under tension (TUT). When lowering the weight back down (when bending the knee), control the weight SLOWLY. Let that part of the movement take some time to allow greater muscle damage. Do 10 reps per leg, for 5 sets. That’s 50 reps per leg for a total of 100 reps. p.s: If you have a reverse leg press use that and apply the same manipulations.

See picture below.

Squats plus Squatting Tips:

– Don’t just go through the motion. Going through the motion with any exercise will not get the job done. When squatting don’t just go from the top and magically end up at the bottom.Control the weight going down, don’t let it control you. When you intently focus on the muscles while they are being worked (visualization); the muscle will actually work harder. Going slower on the way down when squatting (eccentric motion) will allow the legs and booty to work much harder. Once at the bottom push through the heals and explode to the top.

– Control the weight by exerting force through the heels of your feet, whether this be on the leg press, kickback, or squat rack. The heels have a direct connection to the gluteus and majority of the hamstrings. Don’t only push through the heels when rising, make sure you keep constant tension in the heels even when lowering the weight. Don’t make the mistake of pushing through your heels on the way up and bouncing the tension around on your feet during the way down. Control 100% of weight throughout your range on motion. When you reach the top of the squat where the booty is being contracted..SQUEEZE! Again, after you push through your heels to rise, make sure you push those hips forward and squeeze! Squeezing is an intentional way to add tension and force blood/nutrients into those cells. The opposite of a contraction is called the stretch. The booty becomes stretched at the bottom of the squat. Pausing at the bottom will increase the intensity of the stretch to breakdown more muscle fibers. More broken down means more building up.

-Go heavy. How heavy? Heavy enough where you don’t break your form. Breaking your form while trying to build the booty will only take tension off of it. WE WANT TENSION ON THE BOOTY. Trust me, you can do more than you think. Try. Pick a weight the won’t make your knees flare out or change the angle of your back. Keep that back straight throughout squatting to assure tension is being applied properly. Any break in form will allow other muscles to come into play. We want constant tension on the targeted muscle.

-90 degrees or ATG? Should you stop halfway or go lower? For the booty, GET LOW! But why not both? When you get 90 degrees, pause there for a couple seconds, then drop even lower, and rise back up. Partial Squats and Deep Squats both work the same muscles, but ATG work more muscles in 2 ways. Going ATG will activate the gluteus much more than 90 degrees will. Also, once you get to the bottom, there is literally a transfer of tension (weight) when trying to get back up. When you squat low, you actually drop into a hole where a lot of tension is taken off. When you push back up, more tension suddenly gets placed back on. That sudden transfer of tension causes a “shocking” effect, making the muscle work a little extra harder. It’s kind of like doing a concentration curl where when lowering the weight you actually lower it to hit the ground just to pick back up. That dropping and picking back up makes the muscle work harder. So go low!

-Use the Smith Machine! Why? For muscle growth (tension) reasons. Even though the SM takes tension off your stabilizing muscles, it will allow you to add more amount of tension to whatever muscle you want to target. THE BOOTY! Smith Machine allows you manipulate the weight better to hit the targeted muscle more efficiently. Be careful not to put your feet too much forward in front of you as that will target the quads more than the gluteus. Use the Smith Machine and Free Squats to kill two birds with one stone. Adding variety will help add size to the booty.

-We want to work muscles to their fullest potential, so they break down enough to adapt. When they adapt to the pain you give it, it’s ready for more. So the next time you train you won’t be doing what you did before, you’ll being progressing forward by lifting more weight to cause more pain. More pain, more gain! -It takes getting uncomfortable with your legs and booty in order for them to grow. It will hurt. If it doesn’t you aren’t working hard enough. Study what to do then execute!

-The booty is just like any other muscle, it needs to be worked in order to grow. The amount of work you apply to the muscle will determine the amount of results you see. If you want it to grow, know your information, take this article seriously, and go execute! Control the muscle. Use the muscle. Think about the muscle. Squeeze the muscle. Do what needs to be done and it will get done. In my opinion, Bridges, Kickbacks, and Deep Squats are the best overall exercises when done with intent to build the booty. Want to feel the burn even more? Try these techniques:

1. DROP SET: Why stop when you are done? Keep going, but drop the weight. Your muscles only recruit enough fibers to lift whatever weight you give it. Dropping the weight will cause the muscle to recruit the same and different fibers to lift the new amount of weight. Therefor, you are breaking down more fibers and continuing to break down the original ones. So if you were to do a Glute Bridge with 60lbs until failure, you would then get up and decrease the weight so you can continue to bust out more reps. Same with squatting. If you are squatting 135lbs for 10 reps, decrease the weight and continue to work the muscle.

2. SUPERSET: Supersetting is when you finish one exercise and immediately continue with another one. For example: You Squat for 10 reps then go straight into Glute Bridges. You perform two exercises back to back that equal one set. This technique will help continue to work new and existing fibers through a different stimuli.

3. Time Under Tension (TUT)- I touched on this already, but I’m going to again. There are two portions of a movement; lowering the weight (eccentric) and lifting the weight (concentric). Anytime you lower the weight, it can be a good idea to go slow and controlled. The eccentric motion of the movement compared to the concentric has the ability to hold more weight and withstand more pain. Utilizing that fact will help increase results. If you aren’t shaking on your squats, you aren’t applying enough tension to see the results you desire.

But, wait!

This article is useless if your nutrition isn’t in check. You don’t build muscle in the gym, you only break it down in order for Nutrition to come in and repair the damage. They work cohesively. So make sure you are staying consistent with a high protein balanced diet or your body won’t be able to perform any of these tips to their full potential.

Conclusion: If you want your booty to grow you have to act like it. Go into the gym with a plan of attack, then ATTACK. Know your information to get it done and DO IT. The main reason the booty or any muscle won’t grow is due to the persons inability to push past their limits. Most people go through the motion and expect to see their dreams come true. Tension, Tension, Tension will get that booty bigger! ~Thank you~